image: This is a drilling site (26°33′43″N, 100°10′14″E, 2190 m a.s.l.) at the center of the Heqing paleolake in southwestern China. As the first drilling of Chinese Continental Environmental Drilling Program (CEDP) launched in 2002, the high quality sediment cores (below: left, core runs, total 666 m length; right, core section) were used to reveal the Pleistocene history, variability and dynamics of the Indian summer monsoon at the glacial-interglacial timescale. Following this, the CEDP had drilled 2062 meter long sediment cores at Lop Nur (Taklimakan Desert) in 2003 to reconstruct the history of aridification of inland Asia since the late Miocene. The 2282 meter long sediment cores were obtained at Lake Qinghai in 2005 to recognize the interplay process between the Asian monsoon and the Westerlies, and the uplift history of the northeastern Tibetan Plateau. This image relates to an article that appeared in the Aug. 5, 2011, issue of Science, published by AAAS. The study, by Dr. An Zhisheng of State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment in Xi'an, China, and colleagues was titled, "Glacial-Interglacial Indian Summer Monsoon Dynamics." view more
Credit: Image courtesy of An Zhisheng